


The Desolate

by Neroli66



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-24
Updated: 2005-10-24
Packaged: 2019-09-15 14:41:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16935165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neroli66/pseuds/Neroli66
Summary: Jayne, River and Kaylee find comfort in each other.





	The Desolate

**Author's Note:**

> Not betad.  
>  This piece has hints of CSI and slash, both M/M and F/F, plus implied comfort sex. Nothing terribly explicit happens in the story, but some might find the themes a bit uncomfortable.
> 
> Special thanks to the ever lovely [](https://fleshlycherry.livejournal.com/profile)[**fleshlycherry**](https://fleshlycherry.livejournal.com/) for her wonderful story "Here Without You", which can be found on her site [The Cherry Orchard](http://thecherryorchard.lurid-eidolon.org/), which kinda sparked this off in a weird, can't explain way.
> 
> And to [](https://virtualinsomnia.livejournal.com/profile)[**virtualinsomnia**](https://virtualinsomnia.livejournal.com/), whose story [one breath before dying](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1848859/1/) provided the line "absolution in skin", it's based on her summary and it haunted me and begged to be used here.

<><><><><><>

The dim light of his bunk made it difficult to make out the outline of his weathered hand as it rested on the creamy skin of her hip. It was not the smooth skin he had been craving for the past year, but she had found a way give him some of what he needed. Absolution in skin, she called it.

Her skin was not his, smoother and paler, stretched over a frame with more curves than he desired. But that was starting to matter less each time, each night she came to him made it easier seeing Simon blush over the Captains flirtatious comments. Made it easier to watch Mal slowly marking his territory.

Made it easier to remember the day he’d seen Mal take Simon in his arms and kiss him, easier to remember the way Simon had melted into the embrace.

She’d come across him as he stood outside the infirmary fighting back the urge to rush in and tear the two men apart. She had wrapped his hand in her cool fingers and pulled him away before he could draw his gun and shoot them both for ripping out his heart.

She’d led him to his bunk and smoothed gentle hands over his face and whispered words of compassion. Covered him with soft kisses and offered her skin to him in place of her brothers, her voice firmly arguing that she had the same skin as him so he should take it. It wasn’t the same though; he knew that. But it was the closest he’d ever get and he knew that too.

So in the end he had given in to her, God forgive him. He knew it wasn’t right, that he was just using her. That in the dark he was pretending those deep, almond eyes gazing up at him were blue instead of brown. Pretending that the lips wrapping around his cock were thinner, the hands stroking him less delicate, the soft moans caressing his ears deeper.

The way she seemed to know just what brought him the most pleasure helped to keep his mind from dealing with the wrongness of it all. He didn’t even think to ask her why she was doing this till after.

Shock and disgust should have been his response to her confession. But when she had whispered that she could not have him either all he could do was fold her in his arms. The quiet anguish in her voice filled him with a need to offer the same comfort she had given him. He knew he wasn’t as good a substitute as she had been, but it had seemed to be enough.

But it wasn’t just the two of them being denied that which they most craved. Kaylee’s stunned expression as Mal and Simon had entered hand in hand for dinner earlier had made that clear. She was the only one of them that had let her desire be known. The one that least deserved to be hurt like this.

He wondered where Kaylee was going to find her comfort. He couldn’t get the memory of her wounded eyes as she had run from the table to go away. It was haunting him, knowing that they had found a way to bandage the wounds while Kaylee was left to bleed.

The springs in his bunk creaked as she rolled onto her back, her sad brown eyes staring at him intently as she murmured, “We three are the desolate. Denied the flesh of desire we find absolution in skin.”

He was starting to think he’d gone as crazy as she was. River smiled at him and gently kissed him on the nose before sliding off the edge of the bed. He pushed back the sharp pang of loss, wondering when this thing between them had become something he craved in it’s own right.

It didn’t really make the loss of hope that someday Simon would be his any less; it simply made it easier to bear knowing he was not alone. He didn’t think he was strong enough to lose this too, not yet.

He sat up slowly as she walked over to the ladder without bothering to get dressed first. For one wild moment he thought she was going to walk all the way back to her cabin nude, then the hatch opened and Kaylee‘s scuffed boots appeared on the top rung.

She dipped her head down to say something, but the words died as she caught sight of River waiting for her at the bottom. Even from across the room he could see her eyes fill with tears as she dropped the rest of the way down to be wrapped up in River’s arms.

The only sounds in the room were Kaylee’s ragged sobs as he got up to close the hatch while River lead her tenderly over to the bunk. The two girls curled up in a tight ball on his bunk, River with her back against the bulkhead.

He sat down and gently removed her boots before pulling the blanket from beneath their legs and up over them. With great care he gathered up her hair so he wouldn’t lay on it, placing a light kiss on the nape of her neck as he settled onto the bed behind her, adding his arms and legs to the tangle of limbs.

Solemn eyes met his over the head cradled between them; he knew that she was asking if adding her to their arrangement was fine. He gave her a smile and snuggled them both closer. Perhaps the three of them would be enough to fill the void.

An odd image came to him as they lay entangled, earth, sun and water.

“We three are the desolate.” But they had what they needed to flourish, in time.  



End file.
